1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to waste toner amount detecting apparatus and method which can detect whether a waste toner bottle is full of a waste toner using a change in a current of a motor which drives an auger, and an image forming apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an image forming apparatus of an electro-photographic type using a dry toner forms a latent image on a photosensitive body by electrification and light exposure. The apparatus supplies the toner on the photosensitive body by a developing unit to form a toner image on the photosensitive body, and transfers and fuses the toner image on a printing medium. In such an image forming process, some of the supplied toner remains on the photosensitive body and a transfer unit. The remaining toner is removed by a cleaning unit. The removed toner is reused or contained in a waste toner bottle (WTB). In particular, in a color image forming apparatus, since the removed color toners are mixed each other, a waste toner bottle is necessary for containing the waste toner. However, the waste toner may overflow the waste toner bottle, which contaminates the environment within the apparatus and causes physical damage to a waste toner collecting apparatus. In order to prevent this problem, a waste toner amount detecting apparatus is required for detecting whether the waste toner bottle is full of the waste toner.
There has been a conventional waste toner amount detecting apparatus including a light sensor which has a light emitting unit and a light receiving unit and transmits light at predetermined height in the waste toner bottle to detect whether a waste toner bottle is full of a waste toner. The conventional waste toner amount detecting apparatus detects whether the waste toner bottle is full of the waste toner according to whether the light receiving unit receives light emitted from the light emitting unit.
However, the conventional waste toner amount detecting apparatus should be provided with a sensor to detect the state of the waste toner bottle. Thus, its manufacturing cost becomes high and an assembling process thereof becomes complicated. Furthermore, a light window on a light path in the waste toner bottle may be contaminated by a scattered toner. Thus, the sensor may sense that the waste toner bottle is full of the waste toner even though the waste toner bottle is not full of the waste toner.